The Tempest (Folger Shakespeare Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

• Scene-by-scene plot summaries

• A key to famous lines and phrases

• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Barbara A. Mowat

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.

About the Author

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Academic Programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, Chair of the Folger Institute, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances and of essays on Shakespeare's plays and on the editing of the plays.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at King's College and the Graduate School of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is the author of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare's plays and was Associate Editor of the annual Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England from 1980 to 1989.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743482832
• ISBN-13: 978-0743482837
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,859 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "...his complexion is perfect gallows", May 16, 2005

By	Ralph White (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Folger Shakespeare Library presents the optimal format for reading Shakespeare's single plays. Each book provides the background and context of the play, a brief description of the theater as Shakespeare would have known it, and a brief bio of the writer himself. But the most useful feature is the notation on the page facing the text, explaining Shakespeare's usage of words and phrases. There is a wealth of scholarship embedded in these brief notes. An experienced reader of Shakespeare may skip them, to maintain the momentum of the play, but even we may tarry to ascertain his ken.

The Tempest is the birthplace of "there's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple," "he receives comfort like cold porridge," "what's past is prologue," "misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows," "Oh, brave new world*," and "his complexion is perfect gallows." It is Shakespeare's farewell to London, and it is imaginative and enlightening. It is also timeless, often giving rise to contemporary settings in its production.

Prospero's supernatural powers, permeating the action of the play, will take an additional effort at the "willing suspension of disbelief" which we always take to the theater. Yet we are not at all reluctant when, in his epilogue, he boldly asks us to applaud his players.

* This phrase, "...brave new world..." was penned in 1611, and should not seem so "new" to our modern ears as it does.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The storms that lead us to "ourselves.", August 20, 2006

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I recently re-read THE TEMPEST prior to attending The Colorado Shakespeare Festival's performance of this play under the summer stars here in Boulder. Shakespeare (1564-1616) produced this emotionally-moving, poetic romance at the end of his career, in 1611, and published it in the First Folio in 1623. In fact, it was his last play.

It tells the story of Prospero, the exiled duke of Milan, and his beautiful daughter, Miranda, who have been stranded for twelve years on a desert island with two servants, the airy sprite Ariel (who Prospero rescued from being imprisonment in a tree) and the savage Caliban. Upon learning that his usurping brother Antonio is sailing near the island with the Neopolitan King Alonso's party, he uses his magic powers to conjure a sea storm that not only leaves the ship and its passengers wrecked on the island, but which also sparks a courtship between his daughter and the king's son, Ferdinand. The survivors of the wreck are separated into several groups, believing one another dead. Three subplots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban befriends two drunken crew members, whom he believes to have come from the moon, and drunkenly attempts to raise is own rebellion against Prospero. In another, Prospero works to establish the romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda. In the third subplot, Ariel thwarts a murder plot at Prospero's command.

The shipwrecked passengers are eventually reunited by island spirits to discover the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand. In the end, as its title suggests, THE TEMPEST is as much about the opening scene's violent storm, as the journey that brought Prospero to the island and the psychological storm--"the sea change"--leading him to quit his magic and his remote island to return to Milan.

G. Merritt

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Tempest, June 15, 2006

By	Firecracker (Urbana, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This was Shakespeare's final piece of work. He created the character of Prospero in the image of himself. Being the main character, he was toppled in a coup set in his homeland of Milan, was a God-like magician capable of initiating storms and other kinds of magic. By coincidence he saw his enemies in a ship riding towards his island. Where he lived with his daughter Miranda and the native "savage" Caliban.He brought his enemies on his island. And in turn he made them do many interesting things on the island. yet in the end it was all nice and happy, unlike the tragic mood of "Hamlet" or "Romeo and Juliet".

The language was great as usual with all of Shakespeare's great works. Prospero's last lines said also became Shakespeare's last words in terms of writing was concerned. There were plenty of comedy scenes in the play involving the mean spirited native Caliban, who was a servant of Prospero and attempted to rape his daughter, Miranda and later tried to kill him. As the plot went, all became comedies as Prospero saw through everything, the good and the evil, the well planned and the silly.

As many of his contemporaries during the time. Shakespeare despised the natives and saw them as savages. This became clear with Caliban. I found Shakespeare's depictions of him relentless and cruel, almost as if he was describing a pig.

But, overall, the story was very interesting. If you like Shakespeare, then you are sure to like this.